A long time coming
The New York Knicks have been through an array of lean seasons, coaching changes and fan restlessness and now the time has arrived to soak its most poignant moment: NBA Finals bound.
CREDIT: David Richard - Imagn Images
To dream big, you have to envision it.
New York exudes ambitious creativity and the ultimate pursuit to achieve lofty goals.
Finally, after 27 years, the New York Knicks are headed to the NBA finals, completing the final touches in a closeout game four Eastern Conference finals sweep over the Cleveland Cavaliers, 130-93.
More than 11 consecutive postseason wins and chants of ‘Let’s go Knicks,” New York added another significant milestone by sweeping multiple postseason series for the first time in franchise history.
Jalen Brunson may have seamlessly dominated his way to winning the Eastern Conference finals MVP, averaging 25.5 points, 3.3 rebounds and 7.8 assists on 48.7% shooting, but a collective team effort from top to bottom made the difference.
As New York awaits the winner of the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs Western Conference finals series, Cleveland’s season comes to a close.
Was it an opportunity gone missing?
Is this long-awaited return to the Conference finals after two previous second-round exits an impetus to fuel the Cavaliers one step further next June?
And how will the front office led by General Manager Koby Altman re-assess to build upon its roster in the off-season?
Let’s cipher on three areas that mattered most.
27-year wait is over
June 11, 1999, the day the Knicks advanced to the NBA finals.
Allan Houston’s driving baseline layup past Indiana Pacers small forward Jalen Rose for a three-point play solidified the outcome as a raucous reverberation rang through Madison Square Garden.
A moment which lives on to this day.
Houston’s 32-points capped off the eighth-seed Knicks’ magical run, having eliminated top-seed and fierce rivals the Miami Heat, also on Houston’s series-winning shot in a deciding game five and sweeping past the Atlanta Hawks in the Conference semifinals.
Under coach Jeff Van Gundy, New York had to adjust on the fly in a shortened-lockout 50-game campaign where building team chemistry would become important. Patrick Ewing, Allan Houston, Charlie Ward, Chris Childs, Latrell Sprewell, Larry Johnson, Marcus Camby, Kurt Thomas and Chris Dudley gelled in a click, despite a 27-23 record, narrowly finishing ahead of the Charlotte Hornets (26-24).
Fast forward to now, this current Knicks core with Brunson, Karl Anthony-Towns, Mikal Bridges, Josh Hart, O.G Anunoby, Mitchell Robinson, Jose Alvarado, Miles McBride and Jordan Clarkson, it has a variety of contributors able to dominate offensively and defensively lockdown with Hart, Bridges, and Anunoby’s perimeter defence.
Last postseason’s Conference finals loss to the Pacers stung where Tyrese Haliburton played Reggie Miller’s villain role, with shot silencers headlined by game one’s almighty bounce high off the back iron before dropping through nylon.
Think of the pre-season expectations in October where it was NBA finals or bust, only amplified by team owner James Dolan’s comments on WFAN radio in January.
Adjusting to coach Mike Brown’s new offence of motion cutting, starting to reap rewards after a slight fine tuning.
And putting Towns in different sections of the floor to play as facilitator and Bridges overcoming an offensive slump since March, the Knicks have put pieces together to make winning the Larry O’Brien Trophy a reality.
All those losing seasons seem a distant memory.
No longer do boos permeate inside MSG, targeting a scapegoat to pinpoint when things go awry.
One task remains.
And that is to register four wins and add a third championship to the cabinet.
A clinic on how to run offence
There was no doubt coach Brown would unlock a hidden component to New York’s offence.
His vast coaching experiences as Head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Sacramento Kings, Los Angeles Lakers, and assistant roles in San Antonio under Gregg Popovich and Golden State to Steve Kerr gave him different offensive tools to implement.
Although the Princeton offence at the Lakers couldn’t get off the ground, leading to his firing after a 1-4 start in the 2012/2013 season, Brown hasn’t been hesitant to incorporate a variety of offences to tailor towards a team’s roster.
His mastermind ploys worked wonders in his first season in Sacramento (2022/2023), propelling a young Kings squad led by De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis to the league’s fastest pace (103.93) and the most points scored (120.7 per game).
Plays ran through Fox and Sabonis’ two-man game, using handoffs from the top and fast reactive decisions to move the ball from one side to the other.
Brown’s offensive vision has given the Knicks a scary look.
It’s a far discrepancy from Tom Thibodeau, where simple offence ruled proceedings and a substantial amount of isolations for Brunson. But opposition teams quickly figured this out, so that’s where the former two-time Coach of the Year has completely layered out a different offence roadmap, consisting of enough layers to maintain a level of unpredictability.
New York’s firepower has been humming at a ray of knots by piling on 140 points in a closeout game six opening-round victory to the Atlanta Hawks, amassing 35 fast-break points.
137 points in a game one Conference semifinals rout over the Philadelphia 76ers, hitting 19 triples and 144 points in a closeout game four, equalling a playoff-record for threes with 25 alongside the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers.
And in a closeout on Cleveland’s home floor, piling on 130 points, racking up 30 fast-break points.
It became a fruitless task and the Cavaliers experienced this first-hand as the Knicks constantly ran off misses and turnovers, often getting a 5v4 advantage in the frontcourt. With this came open opportunities, putting Cleveland’s transition defence on their heels, unable to defensively get to their assignment leading to numerous triples and layups.
New York’s 20-0 run from late in the opening period to early second period magnified the outcome.
The Knicks have different modes of attack, all starting by attacking the lane in order to collapse the defence and get the opponent in rotation, leading to an extra pass and an open perimeter look.
What’s next for Cleveland?
Reaching its first Conference finals since 2018 was a monumental achievement for Cleveland after two straight semifinals exits in 2024 and 2025.
But being on the receiving end of a sweep isn’t an ideal feeling.
When the dust settles, game one is full of what ifs, relinquishing a 22-point lead (93-71) with 7:52 remaining in regulation, only for New York to hunt James Harden on every offensive possession.
Coach Kenny Atkinson’s analytical comments on the team being 2-1 up didn’t mean anything as analytics tell one side of the game, but the box score is what matters most.
Overall, the Cavaliers exerted every ounce to reach this stage, winning two hard-fought series against the Toronto Raptors and Detroit Pistons in seven games. Perhaps this contributed to eventual fatigue combined with the Knicks’ crisp offence, always finding a gap in the defence and running of its Achilles heel: turnovers.
The latter told a major picture, conceding 17.2 turnovers in the four games.
Now the off-season awaits and decisions to bring back this squad to aim for another deep playoff run in 2026/2027.